A Consequence of the Past
by Smile Life Away
Summary: Written for Pandora's Little Box of Terrors Challenge. "You and I, we are impoverished. Poverty is more than being without money..."


**A/N: Written for Pandora's Little Box of Terrors Challenge, created by mew-tsubaki. I chose poverty.**

**Thanks to wvvampire for betaing this for me :)**

**Disclaimer: I Own Nothing**

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_One minute I held the key_

_Next the walls were closed on me_

_And I discovered that my castles stand_

_Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand_

_Viva la Vida_ – Coldplay

OOOO

"You're a worthless piece of trash! They take your father away and they leave me with you! Get out of my sight!"

The woman spits every word and he notices that some of the saliva dribbles down her chin. But he doesn't point that out. He wonders if she's always been this ugly: If her dark hair has always been matted to her face, if her nostrils always flared to reveal thick black hair, if her eyes always seemed to be sunken into her flesh. And her flesh, has it always been yellow, has it always folded; when he was a child did it seem to move on its own.

"I said, get out of my sight!" A vase crashes against the wall – a few inches away from his head – and the young man begins to leave, head down and hands stuffed in robes, one fist still clutched around the sickles he'd offered her when he came home from work with the necessities. It wasn't enough for her though, nothing is ever enough for her. Unless it's the past, but they've lost the past.

"I'm sorry mother." He mumbles under his breath, but she hears him and the next vase cracks against his head and he falls to the ground.

She's pleased apparently, she laughs.

Maybe she has always been this ugly.

OOOO

"_Guilty!" _

_She breaks at those words; Goyle sees her break as they lead his father away. Guilty of crimes against Muggles and Muggle-borns, he'll never see him again._

"_It's okay, mother." He places a hand on her shoulder but she slaps him away._

_Lesson learned: never comfort, it shows weakness. Jacquelyn Goyle is not weak and neither is her son._

"_We'll get through this." He says it to himself, so softly she can't possibly hear. And they will, even though they've lost everything – their wealth, his father, the prestige of their name – they'll make it._

_He's never been one for intelligence._

OOOO

He knows better than to beg. So he waits to write the letter until he's sure his mother is asleep. Waits until he can hear her snoring, then he removes the ice from his head, picks up a quill, and begins to write the letter in his poor excuse for penmanship.

_Draco,_

He crosses it out.

_Mr. Malfoy,_

He crosses that out too. He writes the letter three times before he decides to send it, and by then the sun is making her presence. Quickly he hands the envelope to his owl and watches it fly away.

"You worthless piece of trash, who are you writing to?"

She's standing in the doorway with violent eyes, hungry eyes, murderous eyes.

"Dra-." He's on the ground before he can finish, he doesn't get up until she leaves.

He can't remember when she stopped using her wand and started using her fist. He doesn't care. He's ready to leave her.

OOOO

"_They took him away! They took him away!" The woman is sobbing as she holds a photograph in one hand and a bottle of fire-whiskey in the other._

_The twenty-year old man in the corner says nothing. He's used to this by now; it's been going on for three years – since his father was put in Azkaban for life. _

"_They took him away and they left me with you!" She turns to face her son and throws the glass bottle letting it shatter against the wall._

_Goyle doesn't even notice the shard of glass that rips above his eyebrow, not even when the blood runs down his cheeks like a tear. _

"_I'll get you another bottle." He murmurs instead and she doesn't seem to hear him, she's drifted back into her blubbering and sobbing state. _

_When he comes back with the bottle she snatches it from him and hugs it like her child. She doesn't notice he's bleeding either._

OOOO

He doesn't come back from work the next day. He takes what belongs to him with him and after work he wanders the streets. He doesn't worry about his mother; he's left her all of the money, all of the fire-whiskey and mead, all of the food. All he has is the clothes on his back and his Inquisitorial Squad badge.

He doesn't dare Apparate, he never did get his license and he's terrified of being splinched. Instead he walks, he walks until his legs can't move anymore and he can't see an inch in front of him and then he sits on the side of the road, buries his head in his robes and falls asleep.

OOOO

"_Did you miss us?" The seventeen-year old wizard waits for an answer from his friend but none comes. _

"_Why would he miss us?" Crabbe answers for the blond wizard who is most definitely not paying attention._

"_Cause we're his friends."_

_Malfoy finally turns to look at them with empty grey eyes, no with dead grey eyes._

"_Of course you're my friends."_

_For the first time, Goyle doubts him._

OOOO

He wakes up to his owl clawing at his head and the _thunk _that follows. It's a bag, a bag of Galleons and attached to the owl is a note.

_Draco is in France so I went ahead and sent this on his behalf. I'm sure he'd love to see you, please come and visit us._

It is written in a curly script and at the bottom there is an address and a name. He knows who sent it, knows she didn't even speak to Draco before she did, knows Draco probably didn't even see his letter. And in all honesty he knows that when Draco finds out he won't even care.

The man slips the bag into his robes and comes to an unsteady standing position, only then does he realize how cold it is and that now the street is full of people, full of witches and wizards, and they are all staring at him or hurrying their children away from him.

"Mummy, why is that man on the side of the road?" A little girl asks, a blonde-haired, green-eyed, girl in pink robes.

"Shh…let's go, don't stare." And her mother, a woman he doesn't recognize from school, grabs onto her wrist and pulls her along.

OOOO

"_I'm going to be just like daddy, right?"_

"_Yes. You're growing to grow up to be just like your father."_

_And she picks the little boy up and spins him in a circle. She's beautiful, so beautiful, her dark hair flies and her hazel eyes shine and she's smiling. His mother is smiling at him, and she's proud of him._

"_I love you, mummy."_

"_I love you too, Gregory."_

OOOO

He contemplates taking the bag of money back to his mother. It will make her happy –happy with him. He can't remember a time when she was pleased with him, not since they locked his father away. The decision only takes a moment and he's Apparated home –without being splinched.

"Mother!" He calls as he enters, "mother!"

There isn't an answer, there is always an answer whether yell or snarl he always hears something. Instead he's met with an eerie silence and Goyle pulls out his wand only to see her.

She's given him a show apparently. There's a letter that's sealed with their family emblem in wax, an untouched glass of fire-whiskey sits just to the side, and of course there is a body – her body – sitting at the table looking peaceful and content, except she's dead. Her eyes are open and glassed over as if she's looking in the distance.

She's never looked so ugly.

"Mother." He whispers it now, not expecting a response but needing one. "Mother."

He places the bag before her and opens it to reveal golden Galleons.

"Mother, I brought these so you would be happy."

It's then that he sees her wand, lying on the ground carelessly. She would use it on herself, but it wasn't good enough for him.

He reaches a hand forward and takes the letter, shakily opening it:

_Gregory,_

_You'll be back. I know you will. And when you come back, I'll have passed, gone of my own devices. There is nothing you can give me that will make me happy again. I have lost everything: my husband, my wealth, my name, and now I am losing my mind. You and I, we are impoverished. Poverty is more than being without money, Gregory. I have nothing to live for; there is nothing important in my life anymore._

_Jacquelyn Goyle _

It surprises him that he cries. After all, the woman hated him, even to the very end. But it's all he can do, sink to the ground and cry like a child clutching onto the Galleons that should've saved her, if money had been the issue.

He doesn't look up when the door opens and they take her body away, doesn't ask how they knew she was dead, doesn't speak when they ask him questions certain he was involved in her death somehow. He just clutches onto those damned Galleons, buries his head in his robes and cries. Even when he's in a holding room waiting to be questioned by Aurors – because a killing curse was definitely used on his mother and they're just not willing to leave it at suicide.

"I didn't…" he blubbers and the door swings open.

OOOO

_It's a closed casket funeral, but there isn't a body anyway. It's raining but no one bothers to put up any charms, they just stand there with wet hair sticking to their faces and water weighing down their robes. He stands beside Malfoy, who doesn't acknowledge him, and besides Crabbe's mother who can't stop crying. Crabbe's father isn't here, he's rotting in a cell in Azkaban._

"_Goyle," it's only after that Malfoy finally graces him with a few words. "Do you think…do you think it hurt?"_

_He shakes his head dumbly because he knows that's what Draco wants to hear, but his blond companion doesn't believe him. _

"_You've never been a good liar."_

OOOO

Harry Potter walks in, Head of the Department, _Scar-head _as Draco used to call him.

"Cause of death has been determined, let him go." He almost sounds reluctant but Goyle just stands and walks out, the Galleons still pressed to his chest.

He knows he should see escaping the Ministry – and inevitably Azkaban- as a breath of fresh air, but instead he's filled with loss, because he's all alone and all of the Galleons in the world couldn't save his mother.

He finds his way to the Leaky Cauldron and takes a seat in the back, hoping not to warrant attention, and he doesn't. Because no one cares about the wizard in the tattered robes clutching onto a bag of Galleons and crying, no one cares that he's only a shadow of the person he once was. Back when he had everything.

"Goyle."

He knows that voice, he could never forget it.

Draco Malfoy slides into the seat opposite of him and even Goyle can tell he was rushed getting here.

"Dr- Malfoy."

That is all the two men say to each other and Draco orders two fire-whiskeys as Goyle slips the Galleons back into his robes. When the barmaid comes back with their drinks Draco takes a sip, his eyes never leaving Goyle as if judging him.

"I got back today, and then I heard about your mother." Draco explains finally, but Goyle knows he had no plans of being in England today. "I came to make sure you were all right."

"She told you to, didn't she?" He waits for an answer, but none comes. Malfoy just lifts the glass again and takes another sip.

"You can stay with us, if you want. There is plenty of room. Unless you want to go back home that is."

He doesn't want to go back. But he also doesn't want to go where he's not wanted.

"I wrote you."

"I know, Astoria told me." He places the glass down and gives a smirk that is so _Malfoy, _it's the _I know more than you think _smirk, the _I'm better than you_ smirk, it's what defines Draco.

"She sent me money."

"I asked her to."

"Why didn't _you_ write me back?" This time he doesn't answer and his smile drops, but only slightly.

"Come stay with us, that way you won't be alone."

_Alone. _Alone means without company. _Without. _Without means a lack of, and he already lacks so much. He doesn't think he can survive lacking anything else.

So he nods.

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**A/N: Please Review :) **


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